You had a semiotic system, whereas before, yesterday, or a minute ago you had no language at all.

一个符号系统诞生了，然而之前，昨天，或者就是一分钟前，根本就没有语言。

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This, by the way, is a way of showing the fact that everything which appears in a semiotic system is conventional, right?

这也表明了,任何在符号系统中出现的符号都要符合惯例？

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It has the function, in other words, of negating its own meaning in another semiotic system, in this case the semiotic system of the stoplight.

也就是说，他有这样那样的功能，在不同语义系统中表示的甚至完全相反，就像红灯表示的这些不同含义一样。

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The red light is intelligible, in other words, within that semiotic system.

红灯在这样的语境里，就有了它的意义。

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Well, that's because it's actually not a gross constituent unit in a semiotic system, right?

哈哈，这是因为,红灯不是这一符号系统的一个完整单元？

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Now if all we have to go on is just this semiotic system, it's going to be kind of hard to put up resistance to by the same token we'll say "yellow" means "pause," "green" means "go."

而从语义学角度分析，我们必须不能这么想,这样绿色自然就表示继续，黄色表示暂停“

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Once you get that, once you get the value, "Christmas tree," as opposed to "red lights," "red lights" being perhaps a part of some Christmas trees, then you see that you're back in a semiotic system and a very obvious one, because a Christmas tree is a not-menorah, not-Kwanzaa candles.

一旦认识到这点，红灯，指的其实是圣诞树“,红灯是圣诞树的一部分，那么你会发现你回到了符号学的解释中，圣诞树不用于犹太教或者非洲人的节日。

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